Paula G. Web Design

As a business owner who wants a website that works for you, why should you care about web standards? I’m all about a plain English approach so while I don’t expect you to have to understand or navigate the world of standards, validators, and well written code, I do expect you to care about what’s under the hood.

Before I give you some hard and fast reasons why what’s under the hood of your website matters, let me give you an analogy to help you understand what I am talking about. Because, after all, if you’re an end user of a website, and not a programmer, it is possible that you have no idea what code standards are or how they could affect you.

Let’s say you are in the market to buy a new car. You want one that not only looks good but also feels good. You want safety, reliability, and to feel a sense of pride when you drive. Business has been good to you so you decide you are going to splurge and buy a new BMW. Nice! Those 3 letters say a lot. Now, let’s say that instead of going to a reputable dealer, you decide to buy it from a random friend. The papers are signed, and you’re all ready to drive away in your new piece of materialistic bliss. Off you go. Feels good to you. What no one told you though is that while it appears to look and feel good, in fact the engine was built by a 12 year old who had a class in machine shop and assembled all the parts according to a cliff notes guide he bought on eBay.

Suddenly what appeared to be an awesome deal is not. You start noticing things break down randomly. When different people drive the car it acts entirely unpredictably. When you take it to the BMW dealer for service, they are unable to find the parts and you have to redo entire chunks of the engine at once because the framework the 12 year old used was poorly integrated. Last but not least an engine that should’ve lasted you hundreds of thousands of miles goes belly up after just 50,000 miles.

Do you suddenly care about what was under the hood of that car? Indeed you do.

Your website is very similar. How it is built (under the hood) is as important as the foundation of the house. With a poor foundation you’ll find yourself spending a lot more money than you need to in fixing stuff and find that it doesn’t meet your needs of your ever evolving business or the needs of your prospects very well.

Here are 7 reasons you want to make sure the person building your online presence takes a standards based approach:

1. Ease of future updates. Built correctly a site is much more easily maintained and changes to presentation and style can be done efficiently.
2. Users get the best experience possible. Different browsers will yield consistent user experience and branding.
3. Your site is built with an eye for the future. As new standards and browsers are introduced, your site will continue to look good and function well.
4. Improved performance. Pages are lighter in size because of the way the framework is set up. They will load faster and reduce download time.
5. Separates content and presentation. This means you can change one without affecting the other and again it eases maintenance and upgrades.
6. Accessibility. Doing it right makes your site more accessible to people with disabilities and complies with legal requirements such as the ADA.
7. Deliver to multiple platforms. As mobile devices, cell phones, and other gadgets hit the mainstream you can easily make changes to allow your site to display properly in a wide range of devices.

I am constantly improving my own skills and web game to learn and apply standards and best practices to all the work I do. This has a direct impact on the clients I serve.

So, I still assert you don’t need to be an expert in the web yourself — after all your best expertise is in your natural talents you use in your business. But, I do believe you should be concerned about what is under the hood of your site. You wouldn’t want to buy that BMW I described earlier, would you?

(Photo by Jeff Wilcox)

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